Saturday, October 31, 2009

I have constructed an interactive crime scene map of the original cases in the Theresa Allore investigation. This map connects investigation specific photos of the cases of Theresa Allore, Manon Dube, and Louise Camirand with geographic locations on a Google map. This is the closest representation I can provide of Geographic Profiling of these cases.

Happy Birthday Theresa Allore

Theresa would have turned 50 today. I have a hard time imagining that. I think I prefer remembering her at age 19.

I tried to find a new photo, but it's getting harder to come across this stuff. And frankly, I didn't want to go through the big box in the attic again.

I found these doodles made by Theresa from one of her school work books:

Can't really blame her for a wondering mind. The course was on Canadian history; who could possibly stay focused on The United Empire Loyalists.

This one is good:

You probably can't make it out, but it's Theresa practicing my mother's hand-writing to get out of class ("To Whom It May Concern, Theresa was sick... Mrs. Allore"). Then there are notes back-and-forth to other students:

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Charles Toliver - Missing Since 2000

The case of Charles Toliver. Are police doing enough? Probably not. This is Tennessee:

CLINTON - It has been almost 10 years since Charles Lee Toliver - and nearly all of his belongings - disappeared.

Left behind is a trail of conflicting stories, a police report the family says is incorrect and a stack of mail returned to Toliver at an address that was not his from places his family says he never lived.

Toliver, 30, was flamboyant, hyperactive and a skilled spinner of tall tales, according to his family. His only income was a $512 per month disability check. His parents, Danny and Constance Toliver of Strawberry Plains, never learned what that disability was but suspect a mental or emotional illness, possibly bipolar disorder. He made choices that dismayed those who loved him. He had been in prison for theft.

"We never approved of some of the things Charlie did and said, but he was our son, and we loved him," Constance Toliver said. "With Charlie, you never knew what was going to happen next. He was a roller-coaster ride you couldn't get off of."

The ride ended abruptly with his disappearance in February 2000.

"This has destroyed our family," Danny Toliver said. "We don't do Christmas anymore. We don't do nothing. I'm at the point where I don't even like to talk about it any more. The only thing that keeps me going is making myself believe he is still alive."

When Charlie Toliver disappeared, his parents say, he was living with Edward J. McGimsey, then chief of the Anderson County Rescue Squad. Constance Toliver said that she accused McGimsey, face to face, of either harming her son or not telling all that he knows about the disappearance.

Today, McGimsey is 46, a retail store manager and a part-time News Sentinel employee. He initially agreed to a scheduled interview but later canceled.

"I discussed this with my family," he said. "They feel that under the circumstances, and with the way the Toliver family has been towards me as far as their false allegations, that I should not do the interview."

The Tolivers feel their son's disappearance was not taken as seriously as it should have been.

"Maybe that was because Charlie was gay, or maybe because he had been in prison, or maybe both," Constance Toliver said. "We're just glad that a new detective has finally been assigned to the case."

An ATM photo, a tattooed convict

Related document
A copy of the missing persons report on Charlie Toliver

About a month after Toliver vanished, someone used his ATM card in Calhoun, Ga., to withdraw exactly $300 from his SunTrust bank account, leaving another $200 untouched. His parents said they were shown a security camera picture of that transaction by the first detective assigned to the case. "The fellow using the card had his jacket pulled up over his head," Constance Toliver said.

ACSD declined to release the photograph to the News Sentinel. The News Sentinel requested a copy of the missing persons report, which is a public record. Only one page of a two-page report was provided.

Before meeting McGimsey, Toliver had lived in Knoxville with Ernie Lee Luhellier, then 35. Also known as Tony Luhellier, he was a heavily tattooed convicted rapist whom Toliver met in prison. He was released in August 1996, and later he and Toliver borrowed $17,000 from real estate agent Selina Overstreet to buy a house together at 1815 E. Glenwood Ave.in Knoxville.

Overstreet said Luhellier had a job and occasionally bought cars at auction and resold them, and that the pair got additional income by renting out a room in the Glenwood Avenue house.

Despite Toliver's small income, he and Luhellier also bought two houses on a single lot directly across the street. "They had big ideas about fixing up houses and selling them or renting them," Overstreet said, but nothing ever came of the plans.

Eventually, Luhellier moved into one of the houses across the street, where two women also appeared to be living. According to neighbors. McGimsey began regularly visiting Toliver at 1815 E. Glenwood. In 1999, Luhellier quitclaimed his interest in that house to Toliver, who sold it to McGimsey for $45,000.

By late 1999, Constance Toliver said, her son was living with McGimsey in Clinton.

On Jan. 5, 2000, when Charlie Toliver renewed his driver's license, he gave his address as 1822 Glenwood Ave. - the house that Luhellier owned and had moved into months earlier after he left 1815 E. Glenwood.

On Feb, 6, 2000, Constance Toliver said, Luhellier called and claimed that McGimsey and her son had been in a fight. "He said there were holes in the wall, and I think he said there was blood," she said. She and her husband drove to Clinton to check on their son and talk to McGimsey.

"There were no signs of a struggle, no blood, no holes in the wall," Constance Toliver said. "But there was no sign of Charlie, either. None of his clothes or his things were there, except his dog. He would never have left his dog behind."

When two weeks passed with no word from him, his parents filed a missing persons report. Constance Toliver said she and her husband were both distraught, and she was medicated, so it is possible that they made some incorrect statements or that the officer taking the report may not have understood everything they said.

The report states that Charlie Toliver had telephoned his father two days before the disappearance and said he was going to Atlanta. Constance Toliver says that her husband was out of town and had no cell phone.

The report lists her son's address as 278 Taylor Lane, Clinton. Property records show McGimsey bought that land in 1999. Records in the State Fire Marshal's Office show that a 1999 model Oakwood double-wide trailer owned by McGimsey at that address burned down in February 2001, from a fire of unknown origin.

The News Sentinel was unable to resolve the discrepancy between her recollections and the address on the police report.

Photo by Adam Brimer

Mail addressed to Charlie Toliver showing return to sender notifications. After Toliver disappeared in 2000, his family received returned mail addressed to him at places they say he never lived.
About this series
Each month the News Sentinel is highlighting the nature of missing-persons cases as well as specific disappearances through the decades in the East Tennessee area.

According to the missing persons report, Danny Toliver stated that McGimsey had told him there had been an argument between McGimsey and Charlie Toliver "about (their) relationship … (Charlie) was upset over believing that Mr. McGimsey was seeing someone else" and wanted to stay with friends in Atlanta.

According to the report, Danny Toliver states that McGimsey told him he dropped off Charlie Toliver at the first rest stop inside Georgia, where the Atlanta friends were to meet him. Charlie Toliver was believed to have had about $200 cash on him, according to the report.

What happened to Charlie?

Today, the Tolivers say McGimsey told them their son had met a man on the Internet and wanted to meet him in Georgia. Charlie Toliver's aunt, Mary Toliver, said McGimsey told her basically the same thing.

In an e-mail to Mary Toliver, McGimsey said: "I keep hoping every day that one of you will call me to tell me Charlie has called or come back, so we can all rest easier. I hope you believe me, Mary, when I say I didn't, and wouldn't, do anything to hurt Charlie. I hope he's OK and I really wish he would hurry up and call somebody or get back. Regarding the prayer e-mail, I'm praying for him to be all right and to come back soon. You do the same, OK?"

About a month or two after the disappearance, Luhellier brought the Tolivers a stack of their son's mail. Some was addressed to Charlie Toliver at Luhellier's house address. Other envelopes were return mail, bearing yellow address-forwarding labels to places where he never lived, according to Constance Toliver.

Postal Service officials to whom the News Sentinel showed those envelopes said that in 2000, no such label would have been printed without someone filling out - and signing - a form. Those forms were kept on file for a couple of years and then destroyed.

Two of the addresses were in towns in Tennessee and Missouri where Luhellier is believed to have previously lived. One of those addresses, in Hayti, Mo., is also on Charlie Toliver's bank statement.

The News Sentinel was unable to locate Luhellier. On Aug. 13, he was released from a Missouri prison after serving seven years for statutory sodomy and burglary. He was to return to Tennessee and register as a sex offender, but he has not registered here or anywhere, Missouri authorities say. They do not know his whereabouts and have asked U.S. Marshals to investigate further.

The Tolivers live in a dark limbo of uncertainty about their son's fate. They feel confident that Kenny Bradley, a new detective recently assigned to the case, will press the investigation. But they also worry that too much time has passed for the case to be solved.

"Everything goes away with time. Lots of evidence could be lost by now," Danny Toliver said.

Constance Toliver is plagued by unrelenting sadness, nightmares, sleepless nights - and a terrible fear of something even worse.

"I am afraid that we are going to die without knowing what happened to Charlie," she said.

Anyone with any information about the case may call Detective Bradley at 865-457-6255.

Dozens of Toronto police officers looking for clues in the case of a missing 17-year-old girl scoured the Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue area a day after her schoolbag was found nearby.

While the family of Mariam Machniashvili remains hopeful their daughter will return home, police say that the bag's discovery doesn't point to foul play in the case.

Mariam was last seen walking to her midtown neighbourhood school with her brother on September 14.

Police have now established a command post close to where the bag was found.

On Friday, Mariam's father said that the discovery of the bag was a "step forward" in the case.

"I also try to not make any bad conclusions yet, because it doesn't mean we can make conclusions about her not being alive," Vakhtang Makhniashvili said on Friday, speaking to reporters outside his apartment on Shallmar Boulevard.

He continues to believe that his daughter, who will turn 18 on October 27, was kidnapped last month.

His wife, Lela Tabidze, also welcomed the discovery, but added that it was difficult to stay positive.

"Lots of thoughts are coming right now, but I don't think it's relevant to talk about it right now," she said.

"We want to see our daughter -- the faces we see of cheerful children, we want to see her among them," and asked people to come forward if they know anything.

The backpack, which was filled with school books, was found by a local resident on Thursday afternoon behind an apartment building at 120 Eglinton Avenue East. The passerby spotted the bag on an air vent in the building's parking lot.

Inside, some of the books were inscribed with Mariam's name.

The building is about two kilometres from Forest Hill Collegiate, the school where Mariam was last seen.

Police say that the bag is the first "tangible" piece of evidence they have found so far in the case.

Pierre Hugues Boisvenu pressures Liberal Government

AFPAD is still advocating for the Liberal Government to create a special police unit to match missing persons with unidentified human remains. Despite a very successful model currently in existence in Ontario, Quebec' Minister of Public Security, Jacques Dupuis is reluctant to allocate additional resources. It should be noted that a similar national program in the United States is just underway with only part of the data base having been built. Namus.gov is Federal initiative to link remains with missing persons; it is an ambitious project given the vast tasks of linking thousands and thousands of police agencies in the United States.

If you scroll to the bottom of this article you will see precisely the problem with Quebec, it is the same problem that has been facing Quebec law enforcement for decades: miscommunication and fragment-ism:

Vito Spano addresses Cold Case Conference

The former head of New York City's cold case squad, Vito Spano addressed a Vicitms conference in Colorado yesterday. "You should always be an activist" says Spano: I don't know if that's uplifting or depressing. The last time I met with police officials for Theresa's case was a year ago. Pierre Boisvenu came with me to meet the SQ. When the meeting was over Pierre said to me, "you need to come back every year" and my heart sunk.

I can tell you that doing this and maintaining normal, stable relationships is very difficult because it encourages isolation and compartmentalization. It's different for Pierre. His case has gone to trial, the offender is incarcerated. Yes, in 10-years he will have the parole board to deal with, but for now he gets tremendous satisfaction from helping others.

That's not true with cold-cases. You're going back and looking at these old facts. I looked at a picture of Louise Camirand the other night; it ruined my evening. Very difficult to keep vigil under these circumstances.

The former head of New York City's cold-case squad urged families of murdered and missing loved ones to be vocal advocates of their families.

"You should always be the activist," said Vito Spano, the former commander of the New York City cold-case unit. If they do so, the chances improve that their family member's case will get a better look.

Spano spoke in Denver on Saturday at a conference of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons attended by more than 300 members including those who flew in from Texas, Illinois and Tennessee.

Spano, who now works for the New York attorney general's office, supervised investigations between 2001 and 2004 of dozens of killers, including mobsters brought to justice

(XX)101009_victims_CFW- Keynote speaker Vito Spano, former head of New York City's cold case squad, address a conference of Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons at the Red Lion Hotel in Denver, CO. (THE DENVER POST | CRAIG F. WALKER)sometimes decades after murders.Spano said family members can make suggestions to detectives in a diplomatic way about submitting evidence for specific tests using modern technology.

At the Saturday conference, family members of victims met with police, including cold-case detectives and Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman, about specific cases in a session from which the media was excluded.

The Colorado victims group started with 11 members in 2001 and now has 750 members, spokeswoman Stefanie Clarke said.

Colorado State University officials also presented their findings Saturday of a study called "Forgotten Victims: What Cold Case Families Want from Law Enforcement."

CSU researchers looked at the experiences of 36 family members of victims of homicide from 10 different parts of the state.

In Colorado, the number of unsolved homicides since 1970 has grown to 1,487 and continues to rise as the rate of cases solved has dropped from 91 percent in 1963 to 61 percent in 2007. A homicide becomes a cold case by definition in Colorado after it is unsolved one year after the murder.

Prabha Unnithan, director of the Center for the Study of Crime and Justice, said it used to be that most homicides were committed by people close to the victim, such as a spouse, a business partner or a friend. After committing murder, many of them would confess. Now the connections between killer and victim are less concrete, and difficult to establish, he said.

Former CSU Professor Paul Stretesky, who led the nine-month study, said communication with family members of victims can improve the chances that a case will be solved.

Victims often believed police stopped investigating because of limited resources and many believed their race and age and criminal background affected aggressiveness of officers in solving the cases.

In numerous cases detectives or prosecutors told victims they knew who killed their loved one but couldn't prove it.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Police stay quiet on Natasha Cournoyer Investigation

No new news on the death of Natasha Cournoyer. La Jounal de Montreal reports that the Surete du Quebec are clamping down on information on the case, yesterday refusing to release any information to the public. The Laval police did report that several pieces of personal items belonging to Cournoyer have been recovered including her photo Id, and some papers belonging to her (along Route 19). Police are still looking for her purse, shoes and cell phone.

Happy Thanksgiving Canada

This was taken three week's before Theresa died. The media often use this photo, and confuse it; that is not me sitting next to Theresa, but my brother, Andre.

A few things catch me attention in this photo. I took the picture. I can tell because my dinner is sitting to the bottom, left. My father's place is empty, which means he was in the kitchen with my mother (always serve the children first). I know it's Thanksgiving because not only is there white wine, it is served in our best crystal (however I also appear to have a glass of milk). In Patricia Pearson's piece, Who Killed Theresa? she mentions an incident that happened later, after Theresa had disappeared; a piece of plaster fell from a spot in the ceiling in the shape of a heart. That spot is just above Andre's right shoulder (photo left). I still have that plaster, preserved by my mother and given to me when they sold the house. The following morning my brother and sister would board a train back to college, from Saint John to Sherbrooke, Quebec, and that was the last I ever saw of Theresa Allore.

Yes, all this is gone now. The house was sold last year. Frankly it's getting harder for me to remember any of this. Little pieces are fading, and all that is left is a distant flash of brilliant white light.

Friday, October 09, 2009

Natasha Cournoyer: Police Focus on Surveillance Cameras

If you want to follow the Natasha Cournoyer case you have to read the French newspapers. Paul Cherry in The Gazette is very good, but he's about a day late on any new leads and information.

Police found her ID card along the side of autoroute 19, right around the area where a call was tracked to her cell phone. Police are now asking Transport officials for permission to access surveillance cameras along the highway system in hopes that that will provide some information. If you follow the route it is somewhat logical that they are focusing on a path South on Route 15 toward Montreal then across the 440 (the Laval expressway that bisects the island at Le Carefour). Then South again on Route 19. You can cross Laval from here into Montreal (toward to where her body was found), but that is not a typical path to follow:

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Natasha Cournoyer's Body Found

Police confirmed the body found in Montreal's East End is that of missing Corrections Canada worker, Natasha Cournoyer. Given that this is still a very young case I will only say this:

1. Given all the unnecessary attention they receive stranger-homicides are in fact quite rare statistically.

2. Cournoyer's boyfriend Michel Trottier appears to be cracking under the pressure. He's got his face all over the news. He's gone on national television to tell the world he's ready for his polygraph test (no one has asked him to take one). He's professed his "love" for Cournoyer in late-night, incoherent rambles on Facebook. The impulsive actions of a grieving lover? Maybe.

But sometimes people can get so clever that they out-smart themselves. And guilt is a monster: you wait for the shadow of suspicion to pass your house. Sometime you get impatient. In your haste to control the situation you unintentionally point the finger at yourself.

As much as I enjoy making fun of Quebec Police this is one case I believe they have firmly in hand. They are well trained in psychology. They will be very patient, and will close the circle very slowly... on their terms.

Here's the story from Quebec's leading Fish Paper, Le Journal de Montreal:

"Major crimes investigators believe a woman's body found Tuesday next to a dirt road in Pointe aux Trembles is that of Natasha Cournoyer, a Laval resident who disappeared Thursday, three police sources familiar with the investigation said yesterday.

As of early this morning, investigators had not been able to confirm the victim's identity. Laval police, who are probing Cournoyer's disappearance, were called in to assist.

One person who could help identify Cournoyer, 37, was brought to the scene shortly after the body was discovered, just before noon yesterday.

"Investigators from Laval are here. Why? It is a possibility it is the woman from Laval. But that can't be confirmed until we identify the body," Montreal police Constable Anie Lemieux said.

"They were called here to help (supply) our investigators with a good description. If it is (Cournoyer), they will assist and we'll do the investigation together."

Lemieux said a doctor with Urgences Santé declared the woman dead at the scene.

City of Montreal employees on a break found the body, a police officer familiar with the investigation said. A red city van could be seen parked less than seven metres from the crime scene, which was just off an unpaved road leading to a boat launch on the shore of the St. Lawrence River, in a brush-covered area near the intersection of Notre Dame St. E. and 36th Ave.

The dirt road is frequently used by drug dealers and stolen cars are often abandoned there, said a nearby resident, who spoke on the condition that his name would not be published.

The man said he has twice witnessed someone practising their aim by firing a handgun last winter.

"It's like hell, a real garbage dump. I'm not surprised at all that a dead body was found there," he said.

Cournoyer, an employee with Correctional Service of Canada, was last seen about 8 p.m. Thursday as she left Place Laval, the office building where she worked.

Surveillance cameras recorded her heading for the parking lot next to the building, on St. Martin Blvd. E., at the corner of des Laurentides Blvd. Her car was found parked at the far end of the lot Friday.

According to her boyfriend, Michel Trottier, 32, Cournoyer split her time between a home in Piedmont and an apartment they shared in Old Montreal.

Trottier said he believed Cournoyer was abducted Thursday night. He said the last time he spoke to her was at 5 p.m. Thursday; she said she was planning to work late.

Cournoyer was supposed to meet her mother in Anjou on Friday but never showed up.

While Laval police searched for Cournoyer this week, they said they did not believe her disappearance was related to her work.

Laval police Constable Natalie Lorrain said yesterday evening they had yet to receive confirmation that the body found in Pointe aux Trembles is Cournoyer's.

Investigators would continue to search a part of Laval where Cournoyer's cellphone was used after she vanished, Lorrain said.

Identification of the body is expected to be done today in an autopsy, Montreal police Constable Olivier Lapointe said. He also confirmed police were treating the death as a homicide, the city's 24th of the year."

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Officer nailed for using Police database on behalf of Hells Angels' Dad

Citoyens Quebec, chantons nous!

"It's a Small World After All,

It's A Small World After All

It's a Small World After All,

It's A Small World After All"

Montreal police officer charged with unlawful access to database

BY PAUL CHERRY, GAZETTE CRIME REPORTEROCTOBER 1, 2009 2:41 PM

MONTREAL – A criminal charge has been filed against another Montreal police officer accused of accessing a computer database for the wrong reasons.

According to court records, Nancy Lauzon, 30, faces one count of fraudulent concealment. The alleged offence occurred on Oct. 12, 2007. A warrant for Lauzon's arrest was filed at the Montreal courthouse last week. Police sources said Lauzon was arrested and released on conditions and after she agreed to appear in court at a later date that has yet to be determined.

According to a published report, Lauzon was investigated after she accessed the Centre de renseignements policiers du Québec, a provincial database connecting various sources of information. She is alleged to have accessed the database on the request of her father, 68-year-old Fernand Lauzon, a man who was arrested earlier this year in Operation Axe, a police roundup of people who dealt drugs for the Hells Angels.

Fernand Lauzon faces charges of conspiracy, drug trafficking and committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization. He is alleged to have been part of a group that dealt drugs out of the Verdun borough from Aug. 1, 2007, up until the arrests in Operation Axe were made in February.

Chief Inspector Paul Chablo, head of the Montreal police media relations division, confirmed that a member of the police force was arrested. He said the person has been restricted to administrative duties but he declined to confirm her identity because Lauzon has yet to appear in court.

Chablo did say however that the most recent case is not related to one involving a major crimes investigator who was arrested on Sept. 21.

Mario Lambert, 42, faces two counts of fraudulent concealment. He is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 13.

Nancy Cedeno headed for suspended sentence

Ahhh the RCMP: only the FBI has less credibility. Then again you wonder why law enforcement even bothers when everything gets tossed:

Former border agent convicted of taking bribes

Aided drug mules at airport; She faces 14 years in prison despite being acquitted of seven other charges

The smile on Nancy Cedeno's face was that of someone who realized things could have turned out a lot worse, despite having just been convicted of accepting bribes.

The former Canada Border Services agent sported a smile that stretched from ear to ear as she left a Montreal courtroom yesterday, after hearing the verdict in a trial where she was accused of having helped drug smugglers, alleged to be tied to the Montreal Mafia, sneak cocaine through Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

Quebec Court Judge Claude Millette convicted Cedeno of accepting bribes but acquitted her on seven other charges, including allegations that she took part in a conspiracy or committed a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization. A conviction on the latter charge could have extended her sentence for accepting bribes.

She now faces a maximum possible prison sentence of 14 years, but Cedeno, 34, now hopes to avoid that entirely.

Sentencing arguments are scheduled for February.

Prosecutor Alexandre Dalmau said it was too early to speculate on what sentence he will seek.

Cedeno's lawyer, Robert Bellefeuille, said he will ask for a suspended sentence.

After Millette rendered his verdict, Dalmau acknowledged that during Project Colisée, a police investigation into the Montreal Mafia, the RCMP only had evidence that Cedeno collaborated with Omar Riahi, 33, a former Border Services agent, while he helped two smugglers import cocaine through the airport. The smugglers used drug mules who carried several kilograms of cocaine in luggage off flights from the Caribbean.

Cedeno let Riahi have access to her Border Services-issue stamp, which would allow the drug couriers to switch their customs declaration form to a prestamped and coded one that would get them through the airport without being searched.

Riahi pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy, corruption and two counts of committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization. He worked as a customs agent in 2003 and 2004 and was posted in Halifax as a military police officer while he helped smuggle cocaine. Sentencing arguments in Riahi's case are to begin Oct. 28.

In his verdict, Millette determined Cedeno only knew Riahi and that he had at least one partner. The judge concluded there was no evidence Cedeno knew of the existence of a criminal group beyond those two men, and so could not find her guilty of acting for the benefit of a criminal organization, which requires knowledge of at least three people.

Wiretap evidence showed Cedeno was paid at least $500 each time she helped Riahi.

Millette also delivered verdicts involving two other people used by the drug smugglers. Julie Châteauneuf Fleury, 27, pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to smuggle 28 kilograms of cocaine through the airport but she contested a charge that she did so for a criminal organization; Millette acquitted her of that count.

Jean Marie Fritz Balmir, 39, was convicted of conspiracy and committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization.